by Colin Wilkinson

Legacy Farms Apprentice

The author working with another apprentice on a zinnia harvest.

It’s been a long time coming, but I’m finally back writing for Legacy Farms! I’m sure many of you have been anticipating this article, others not so much, and some of you may not even know who I am. I am Colin Wilkinson, a writer and apprentice for Legacy Farms. This is my second year officially working for Legacy, and while most of what I remember has stayed the same, there’s a lot new to Legacy. Specifically, some new faces tending to the farm and flora budding up.

At our plot of land at Temple Hall, I was introduced to three new faces who’re tending to our garden alongside me: Shankar, Nihaal, and Yati. To get familiar with these three I asked them a series of questions about how their experience working in the garden so far.

I started with Shankar, who was introduced to Legacy through his school tutor which sparked his interest. Legacy is his first time working in any kind of garden, and he hopes that his time in the garden can teach him how to properly tend a garden. His favorite thing to do in the garden is to water crops, which I agree is pretty enjoyable.

There are lots of smiling faces at Legacy Farms

Nihaal is another new apprentice and he had heard of Legacy through his mom and dad, who occasionally helped him with tending to the garden. Unlike Shankar, Nihaal gardens at home and became an apprentice at Legacy to get out of his house. Nihaal loves to weed, and I could always find him pulling up the persistent plants with his bare hands.

Yati is new to Legacy in a different way than Nihaal and Shankar are. Yati has previously worked for Legacy as an apprentice, but only during the springtime. I asked him whether he preferred to work during the summer and spring, and he told me that he likes both. The spring is a lot cooler but summer has more going on, and he - like Nihaal - became a summertime apprentice to make his summer a little less boring.

Now that I’ve gone over our new apprentices, let’s take a look at what brand new buds are blossoming in the garden.

Just look at all these fresh flowers, ready to be bunched up together and sent off to caring customers.

Legacy is no stranger to growing flowers, but expanded this year and brought on one of our partners work as a mentor to help these flowers bloom. Said flowers include but are not limited to Lisianthus, Cosmos, Dahlias, Snapdragons, and Scented Geranium. All of these flowers and more are going straight towards Legacy Farms’ new product line called Legacy Blooms. Legacy Blooms is a community supported agricultural project.

In winter, we offered shares for purchase to the Loudoun Community. They could purchase 12 or 16 weeks of bouquets up front to fund our farm, and in return receive their bouquets June through September/October. This funded the garden and apprentice jobs upfront, at the time when we needed to plant. Legacy also sells bouquets at marketplaces and businesses across Loudoun County, for example recently offering a flash sale of sunflower bouquets.

We’re also selling herbal bouquets, in addition to flowers. Fortunately this has been a success for Legacy, as we’ve sold out all our CSA shares. Unfortunately for you, we’re all out of CSA shares! So the next best thing is to get waitlisted on the official Legacy Blooms webpage (A link will be attached at the bottom of this article if you’re interested). Even if you don’t get a bouquet this year, you'll be notified of any early offerings next year.

At first glance, you may be confused as to why I included seemingly unrelated topics in this article. Well, when you really think about it, the new apprentices and flowers aren’t so different from each other. Both of them need help and structure in order to become the best buds they can be.

Learn about Legacy Blooms CSA and Waitlist: https://www.legacyfarmsvirginia.org/programs-legacy-blooms-csa

Fresh Faces and Flowers

© 2020 Legacy Farms

Info

Action